Was the 2008 election a Progressive Mandate, or is America still a Center-Right Nation? (perhaps it depends on how you define "center-right") I think it was not only a progressive mandate, it was a "For the love of God, just FIX THIS SHIT ALREADY" mandate. After eight years of government run by the Seven Deadly Sins, Americans are desperate for someone to clean up the mess, and – surprise! – the Obamacrats made a much more convincing case than the Maverepublicans.

But now the entire country will be watching the Democrats and President Obama to see whether they can pull the economy out of its tailspin, get us out of Iraq, and help those struggling Americans they showcased get jobs and education and healthcare. If they pull it off, they will solidify the Republican brand as the party that fucks everything up beyond recognition, and the Democratic brand as the party that puts it back together again and makes it better.

Obama and the Democrats will be heroes if:

1) They secure affordable, quality healthcare for everyone. (Note: "Free" is a form of "affordable.")

2) They pull the economy out of its nosedive.

3) They start getting our troops out of Iraq immediately. Bonus points if Iraq does not become a bloodbath during or after withdrawal.

4) We can stop taking off our shoes and surrendering our precious toiletry fluids and beverages at the airport. Enough already.

5) They capture or kill bin Laden. This would be the ultimate fuck-you to Bush, especially if it happens in Obama’s first year.

6) They allow everyone to obtain a college degree without going into debt.

7) Gas prices go down.

8) They cut taxes for the lower and middle brackets and raise it for the upper ones. This would take away one of the GOP’s favorite anti-Democratic boogeymen.

9) They handle natural disasters brilliantly.

10) They stop a real terrorist plot, as opposed to some yahoos with blowtorches. Especially if they do it without torture or warrantless wiretapping.

Obama and the Democrats will be goats if:

1) The economy continues to crater.

2) They fail to deliver on Obama’s core promises of healthcare, energy, and education reform. Especially if they don’t hold Blue Dogs and Republicans accountable for obstructing them.

3) They fail to get our troops out of Iraq. (That went over really well after the 2006 election…)

4) They abuse their power like BushCo did: settling scores, rewarding cronies, protecting their own.

5) They cave to corporate interests again and again.

6) The federal government doesn’t do its job because it’s stacked with industry lobbyists and well-connected incompetents. (I’m cautiously optimistic on this one.)

Bear in mind, I’m looking at this from a universal crowd-pleaser perspective rather than a progressive or wonk perspective – i.e., what will make Americans excited and positive about Democrats. Obama and the Democrats need to make a lot more changes than just the ones I’ve listed, but I’m not so sure diplomacy and good-government initiatives are big vote-getters (although I sure hope they are). It’s a two-pronged task, really. They need to fix the country, and they need to buy enough time to finish the job.

I think it’s a mistake for liberals/progressives to stand at the podium and say, “They like us. They really, really like us”. No, they don’t.

People are voting their pocketbooks and that’s about it. They are concerned with the economy and how it affects them. This is as “progressive” as this country is going to get – remember, these same voters also apparently hate the idea of all Americans having the same rights and are willing to pass laws saying so.

Troops out of Iraq and re-establishing a functioning independent DoJ have topped my list for awhile. With a functioning DoJ, my hope is that an awful lot of ‘justice catching up’ will take care of itself, if you catch my drift.

I just posted this at my place. It was issued 20 minutes ago by the Alaska Democrats’ HQ:

According to the Division of Elections, there are now 81,000 ballots outstanding that need to be counted. This accounts for more that a quarter of the total votes.

Also today, the Division of Elections said they’d count about 2/3 of the ballots (absentee and early) next Wednesday. Questioned ballots aren’t likely to be counted until the end of next week or even the beginning of the following week. Based on data from the Division of Elections, Begich is leading Senator Ted Stevens in the early votes which have been counted – 59% to 37%. However, there will be enough question ballots left after Wednesday’s count for the race to still go either way.

I don’t want to use it as a false excuse for what may be some failings under this new congress and administration… but, I expect the economy to crater due to existing problems for some time. What matters is if progressive policy/spending/taxation is attempted, imo.

And both Democrats and (especially) progressives are not defined well enough imo…even within our own conversations.. to be able to declare they like us or not.

It will probably be some sort of poodle cross because of Malia’s allergies. Think peke-a-poo, cocker-poo, etc. Mixed breed dogs are much more friendly than most terriers, and remember – this one must be good with kids!

I heard from a whole lot of people who did NOT vote their pocketbooks:
Pissed off Republicans – and they were pissed off about all sorts of issues, very few of which revolved around the economy and most of which had been perpetrated on the country by what is passing for their party.
Pissed off feminists – offended that the Rethugs somehow thought that “T and O” was all that mattered in terms of having a VP candidate who would siphon off the Hillary contingent.
Pissed off young people who see what the past eight years have done to their futures..and their kids’ futures(if they can ever afford to get married and have some).
Pocketbook issues were big for a lot of folks, I am sure; but I heard a lot more from people who were just supremely pissed off and had an opportunity to actually DO something about it.

1) They secure affordable, quality healthcare for everyone. (Note: “Free” is a form of “affordable.”)This can be done.

2) They pull the economy out of its nosedive.NOT about to happen, so many other shoes have yet to drop (like leveraged derivatives)

3) They start getting our troops out of Iraq immediately. Bonus points if Iraq does not become a bloodbath during or after withdrawal.We can do this and there will not be a bloodbath

4) We can stop taking off our shoes and surrendering our precious toiletry fluids and beverages at the airport. Enough already.First we need to clean-house at DHS and maybe even rethink having the department at all

5) They capture or kill bin Laden. This would be the ultimate fuck-you to Bush, especially if it happens in Obama’s first year.That would be TOO SWEET.

6) They allow everyone to obtain a college degree without going into debt.Like civilized countries?

7) Gas prices go down.Sorry folks, we need to get used to $4/gallon gas. But we need t make the high price happen because of the taxes that pay for item number 1.- Healthcare

8) They cut taxes for the lower and middle brackets and raise it for the upper ones. This would take away one of the GOP’s favorite anti-Democratic boogeymen.And provide for a minimum corporate tax as so many pay none at all despite the allegedly high US rates.

9) They handle natural disasters brilliantly.See number 4.

10) They stop a real terrorist plot, as opposed to some yahoos with blowtorches. Especially if they do it without torture or warrantless wiretapping.Doesn’t stopping Bu$h and the GOP count?

Yeah, bear in mind that the list was not intended as predictions. I suspect that a lot of these things will not happen, due to either the weight of circumstance (economy) or lack of political will (healthcare). We’ll see how aggressive Obama is, and how willing Congress is to go along with him.

The best part in all of this? The republics know come January 2009, they had better not play games with the American people, because if they do, they will continue to lose seats in both the House & Senate and the Democrats will have a majority for a very long time!

Ha ha. The republics are forced to play nice. Will they turn to guns & religion now? Hey, could be. They’re pretty predictable.

I would like to see some messaging out there on realistic expectations – especially about the economy. tricky ? a little, but he is President Elect because he treated the electorate like we have rational, functioning brains

and it is going to get worse.

a week ago today, Janet Yellin, Pres of SF Federal Reserve Board said “we should all expect the economy to contract significantly in the fourth quarter”

that’s like being in labor and having them tell ya, hang on, “yer gonna feel some pressure ” there

oh! Eli~
it’s the first night i could actually take off work and celebrate!
and I CANNOT express here the tears and joy and yelling in the street last Tues. night.
“”For the love of God, just FIX THIS SHIT ALREADY” mandate”
is sooooooo righteous.
you rock, and i think the Mandate TO YOU is
“write more”~!!!!!

i don’t think I could be clearer here.

it’s no less of a mandate as Rohmbo’s…………
not tooooo much to ask, i’m thinkin’

I can’t wait to see what kind of dog the Obama’s pick for their new home….the White House! I’m sure if they decide to get a dog from a shelter, there are shelters out there that specialize in hypoallergenic doggies.

I agree with your criteria for success Eli, although I’m not sure that we can accomplish the good stuff without “settling (some) old scores”… the rethug obstruction machine, once it finishes eating their own for a few months, will try their darndest to stop our new president from succeeding on any of your points unless they are dragged into the
light and punished — either with political damnation or actual prosecution.

I would also consider adding one: transformation of the national culture into one that is
more compassionate, more diverse, more tolerant, more open to change and
new ideas, and more patriotic to the ideals of American community and democracy (rather than the tokens and regalia of USA! USA!). I read today a story about how a child in rethug AZ shot his dad and a friend. The rethug prosecutor announced that even though the law excuses children from responsibilty for such mishaps he was going to exploit the heinous nature of the crimes to prosecute the child for capital double murder anyway. The child is 8 years old. This type of crap has to stop, and I’m looking to Obama to help lead the visionary process of
moral change.

Transforming the culture would be huge, and something that Obama is probably better equipped to do than almost any other Democrat. The fact that the smear campaigns backfired so enormously is very encouraging.

The American people aren’t stupid, even though Howie Carr of right wing radio said we are for voting Barack in. Yeah, yeah, according to Howie, we voted Barack in because we are the ‘dumbing down of America’ in action. See? We’re not the INFORMED VOTERS WHO HAVE BEEN PAYING ATTENTION FOR THE PAST 8 YEARS. That said, these same voters will be watching the republics come January and the republics will get their asses kicked by us every time they play games so no piece of legislation gets passed that will help us out.

I say we ONLY call republic offices come next year when we’re pissed instead of calling Pelosi & Reed all the time. We need to go to the source to make the wingers cry.

Three of the four candidates I worked for won! Woohoo!
(Barack and Ol’ Joe count as one). But Charlie Brown breaks my heart, about 700 votes short in CA. But just checked and those interactive map things say the race is not called yet. That true? Is there still hope?

I heard residents calling McClintock ‘the carpetbagger.’ How could he have won? Maybe they were all Brown supporters calling that corrupt reactionary carpetbagger, the carpetbagger.

I find it hopeful, if Obama continues his very competent and community organizing ways after the election.. If Obama continues to push for more grassroots input and participation and good well planned organizing, that might be more important than many of his specific policy -some of which all of us will disagree with, sometimes strongly. And which will range from awesome to bad, which is the human condition.

Of course, I can already hear the GOP muttering that change.com is just corrupt big city Chicago machine politics via internet. Well, who cares what they say? If Obama can get the economy moving again, money will flow into productive uses again, in regular peoples’ hands, rather than mega-rich cronies who already have so much they don’t know what to do with it. And that is more important than whether most people ‘like’ us or not right now.

Result talks and BS walks. If we show some results, they will slowly begin to like us, whether they realize it or not. The population has had nothing but 100% total BS that kills, maims and impoverishes for the last eight years. A little Result, things merely working again will go a long way.

Obama said to Rachel in his interview with her that ‘he was planning on bringing his campaign to the White House’. Rachel didn’t really pick up on that, but I did and this website is just the initial indication that is the case. I expect that he will continue to send out emails and all the other contact stuff when he needs help pushing congress to do stuff asking for phone/fax/email pressure etc. He asked for help – and he is smart enough to know that if he expects to get any he has to provide a mechanism to do so – and here it is.

I never had a beef with Barney. I felt for the poor dog, being trapped like that. Barney is probably impaired in some way, being a purebred as opposed to a mutt (I don’t know much about Scotties, though).

The bottom line is that if I were a dog, I would be tempted to bite a national affairs reporter too. Too bad it was Reuters, which I think is better than most, though I also do not know how awful that particular reporter is. Or maybe his is OK.

Now, if Barney bit a McClatchy reporter, that would definitely be dog style political payback, and would show that Barney had been corrupted by the whole sick Cheney/Bush crew. I would frown on that and I would reject, repudiate, revile and reprobate the bad dog Barney to the max.

I never had a beef with Barney. I felt for the poor dog, being trapped like that. Barney is probably impaired in some way, being a purebred as opposed to a mutt (I don’t know much about Scotties, though).

Scottish terriers (Barney) are noted for being moody, grumpy, and one-person dogs. Like most of the terrier breeds. They are feisty since they were usually used for killing vermin (rats, etc) and not bred for playing nice.

Barney may be impaired – but that’s probably because W dropped him on his head. I feel sorry for Barney.

for the Palinists, I suspect that’ll be a hybrid combination of Apartheid South Africa, the Islamic Republic of Iran and some good ole fashioned Prussian militarism thrown in for good measure… emphasizing the worst aspects of each.

Dog breeders care because if they get a purebred dog – all of a sudden that breed will get really popular and lead to all kinds of backyard breeding and the puppy mills will go into full-swing making puppies ‘just like the one the Obamas have’. It can have a devastating effect on a breed.

If they get a shelter mutt – that would be much better – maybe encourage others to adopt a dog or cat from a shelter instead of making more of them.

I think this talk that the US is left/right center, extreme vs semi extreme, center-center vs mid-right left-center and mid-center right northwest by south by southwest ideological mumbo jumbo is garbage.

It is ideological social engineering by corporate media and corrupt, paid, media pundit class to divide the people. It is nothing more.

I hope the Obama administration is sensible enough to simply and completely ignore that nonsense and talk like grown ups. Let the results speak for themselves. I think the Obama team realized the best way to beat the corporate media was to bypass it.

To do that now requires that they get on the stick with appropriate plans to continue their community organizing approach without trying to use it as a gimmick or burning out their supporters. I hope they have planned this as effectively as they have the election effort.

What would be very bad is using their troops like the GOP used the social conservatives. I think social conservatives are pissed of and will stay so for a long time. Twenty to thirty years is a long time to be used like a garden tool, or a handy roll of toilet paper. I would say tissue, but I think FDL still permits some vulgarity.

But then, as a Christian, I know from personal experience that the words ‘trust me, I am good Christian’ is a serious warning sign and hearing that means something whacked is going on. And that has been a big part of the GOP pitch. So the reactionary Christianists should have known better.

Given that the Obama camp has had their ‘transition team’ already working for over three months already – and that they had their new website up the day after the election, and his statement that he’s bringing the ‘campaign to the White House’, I do think that is exactly what he/they have planned. I predict that the new website will be an action center for people to help push his agenda through Congress, and will also have the blogs and groups that will allow us (the people) to communicate directly with him (as much as that can happen anyway).

Dropped the poor dog on his head, huh? I always suspected that being owned by W would be a dangerous situation. We all came close enough.

I am so sorry Barney, forgive me!

As long as we are talking about animals, I guess Dachsunds are the same way. Very friendly, trusting and loyal to those they know, but can be vicious little killers and biters in the wrong situation. Bulls will gore your just for the heck of it.

Old pigs are the worst. Dogs will give a warning nip. Cats a warning scratch or bite. Bulls a warning charge. An old pig will just knock you down and start trying to eat your foot or something. I wonder if Cheney has a big old grouchy pig as a pet.

I also worked for McNerney which might piss some people here. I discussed the progressive left’s concerns about him early in his term. McNerney said in a friendly way that he was a moderate that his who is and will be.

But, his opponent Andal would be bad news in Congress, so I could not help myself in the final weeks when it looked close, so went a knockin’.

Andal is pure reactionary House GOP material. A bad faith artist of the highest order and very reactionary.

I have never figured out why W has a dog like that. W is not an animal person. He claims to be a ‘Texas rancher’ but have you noticed you never see him riding a horse? That’s because he is deathly afraid of them! So we get the ‘brush clearing thingy’ cuz he can relate to a chain saw.

I think instead of getting a new dog, Obama should just consider offering to take Barney off shrub’s bloodstained hands. I mean, shrub won’t need Barney as a prop anymore and I doubt the luxury penthouse in Dallas shrub has told a number of people he wants to move to (Crawford was just a prop too… shrub hates the outdoors) will even allow pets.

Out of this assortment of royal bleeping messes, I will be positively tickled if we manage any one or two turn-arounds. When you’re in several catastrophic nose dives simultaneously, it’s hard to argue against correcting any of them.

Given the depths of the messes that we’re in, and the laws of social inertia, fixing everything, even within one or two terms, is probably too tall of an order for any mortal.

But, just as the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, the repair of all problems begins with a single fix. And, then another. And, then another. If we can just start changing direction, the rest can follow, even if it takes more than Obama.

If Obama can just pull that off, he will be a hero, not only in my eyes, but in the history books, as well.

There was a big discussion about that on MoJo today – whether the Obama kids would be going to public school in DC. That school system is a complete shambles and the new Supt Rhee has not had time to work her magic yet – but I would be very surprised if the kids are not in another private school – as they have been for their whole school lives.

That said, we need to get all of our public schools functioning like the BEST private schools – and that is going to take a real commitment to some change in the old way of doing things. The NEA is going to have to budge on the merit pay and tenure and some stuff like that. It isn’t necessarily a throw-money-at-it thing – just a shift in the way we think about education and how we utilize the resources.

My Republican sister lives in Oklahoma, where McCain beat Obama by something like 32 percentage points, which I believe was the largest McCain margin in the country. Next time we talk I intend to tell her that with any luck under Obama they’ll receive more federal funding for education.

While that might be the best solution for Barney – it would not for the Obama kids. Barney is not a hypoallergenic breed – and Scotties are not good with kids. Besides, if Barney is fixated on W, he would not adapt to any new ‘owner’ very well, especially since he is not a pup any more. Too bad.

I dare say that the condo owner’s would make an exception for the ‘President’ if he really decided to take him there. Otherwise poor Barney is liable to just disappear.

I don’t think they need to pull off all of them, but they definitely need to pull off *some*. Enough for Americans to say, “Hey, these Democrats aren’t so bad after all. They’re a hell of a lot better than the Republicans.”

But, just as the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step, the repair of all problems begins with a single fix. And, then another. And, then another. If we can just start changing direction, the rest can follow, even if it takes more than Obama.

An excellent point. Plus, a change of attitude at the top percolates down through the bureaucracy and the worker bees (career civil service – the people who really keep the government functioning) will respond overwhelmingly. Most of those people really want to do a good job and do the job they were hired to do. Shrub has prevented that good feeling and doing jobs well for his whole term and we have lost a huge number of good people who resigned rather than be a part of tearing apart everything they had worked so hard to build.

So whether it all gets ‘done’ is probably not the marker – just that progress is being made in the right direction.

Lundgren, yeah. I was visiting my people in the Central Valley and saw a Lundgren commercial. Yikes. I was hoping it was a mistake and Lundgren had gone McCain/Palin wrt to his campaing (that is, totally incompetent), and running his commercials 300 miles away from where they were suppposed to be.

When I can stomach it, I will find out what is up with that Lundgren.

There is a bright side to this, and all this carpetbagging shows how thin the GOP bench is. The wingnuts and the Rove-ties killed off a lot of very good future GOP stars in the US Attorney purge. I cannot believe I would ever vote for any of them, but at least they were competent, sane and ethical. They are gone. Iglesias is an example. Hagel is sane, so he is dead to them. Powell (probably ethical when he can be his own person)…. well…. he is kaput. Arnold has some of the desired weasel traits, but he is a commie to them, and cannot run for President anyway. I also wonder if he can survivie a rough CA GOP primary. Some one told me that even W said the CA GOP was insane and too far right. I wonder if that is true? Anyway, who are the next generation of winning GOPer polticians, who are competent sane and ethical?

Decoupling is a good idea – but it has to be accompanied by some sort of minimum funding requirement. California arguably had one of the best school systems statewide when it was still coupled to the property taxes. Of course there were districts that were bad – just as there are anywhere.

They undertook this reform by decoupling – so all the property taxes go into a central fund and then are doled out to the schools on a per-kid-per-day basis. Then the legislature started raiding the fund. So the voters passed a minimum requirement. Trouble is that it’s a 1984 funding level. So now California schools are near the bottom – 47th I believe, beating out Mississippi and Alabama. Ouch!

The per-kid-per-day also doesn’t take into consideration the economies of scale – it’s cheaper for infrastructure in the LA basin district (buildings, busses, etc) than for Trinidad Elementary (84 kids in k-8).

So while decoupling is a step – it’s just one and there are a lot of other complicating factors.

Boy, that was poorly written. What I meant to say was that as part of Obama’s plan to offer help with tuition for college, he would probably require that new teachers go to troubled school districts as part of their service requirement.

Bill Durston came within striking distance of Lungren and says he will go again in 2010. The normally rational Sac Bee endorsed Lungren – simply because they thought Durston’s political experience “too thin” aarrggh

and we are in agreement about that rather thin bench. Clueless clowns like Eric Cantor are stepping up for Leadership positions – oh please, give us more of that in ‘10 :D

There was a study published recently regarding the issue of how people think they do when presented with certain challenges. They gave this group of people a questionnaire and asked how they thought they would do on a test. They then took the test. Then they were asked again.

The people in the lower 25% responded both times they would/had done just fine.

Ouch! Just watched the clip of W dropping poor Barney. That was quite a drop.

And it reminds me of something I have wondered about -why is W always carrying that dog? Are there no leashes? Are there no dog feet on Barney? I have seen footage of the dog, Barney, walking on its own two feet perfectly fine. Barney seems to enjoy himself waling on his own. In the clip of the famous Barney dog bites reporter incident, Barney seems perfectly fine on a leash. Of course, his walker seemed like a nice man, so there is that to consider.

Maybe W is a control freak, or something. Or has no rapport with animals of any kind, so cannot control the dog in a civilized manner unless he is clutching it like bag of ill gotten gains.

That is exactly it. He doesn’t know the first thing about how to handle animals, is afraid of the bigger ones, and I think he has Barney because he thinks somehow it makes him look better (kind of like Queen Elizabeth with her Corgis.) Only trouble, the Queen’s Corgis adore her and she them!

Sacramento BEE endorsed Lundgren!? What the…
Lundgren won in CA District 3!? Ugh. I didn’t even know he was running there.

Gross! Yuck. That is bad news. Lord, that jerk will be on the Sacto news stations, talking and lying and leering and sneering and misleading and smearing and generally being disgusting all the time now. But doing it an irritatingly soothing way.

And one side of my family adores that wingnut and other loathes him. Severe penalties will have to be added for infractions to ‘no impolite political arguments’ rule at my family gatherings now.

Well, thanks for getting me to look up the situation. At least I got the news sitting down.

That’s the best idea yet. Bureaucracies function better when they have a narrow focus. Making that huge combo-nightmare DHS was a guarantee that nothing in it would ever work the way it was intended. FEMA was just the most egregious and obvious example of what happened.

That was the public face of it. The actual intent was the destruction of any semblance of the government being able to actually function. After all, that is the grand design of the GOP – to destroy the government.

They use the Reagan mantra of ‘the government not working’ and then they get into power and basically prove it. Then they point to the useless mess they have made and say ’see, we told you so’.

This combining of agencies meant they could do it in one fell swoop instead of having to take them one by one.

I gather that’s it. Really rare books are sometimes valuable in any condition. A while back I was looking at a website that sells first editions. It was pretty interesting, though mostly stuff totally out of my price range.

I’m all for that – it’s the right thing to do. But might take a while.

Yanking FEMA seems relatively quick and obvious. Surely the country would rally behind it and congress might have trouble complaining. We’d have the luxury of knowing it is funded and who is calling the shots.

The most expensive first edition of The Great Gatsby at Bookfinder.com is five hundred thousand dollars… not even autographed. What a bargain! For that kind of money, I’d have to insist on having Fitzgerald rise from the grave and type it for me.

Is Missouri still MIA in the Electoral College? I’d make room on that list for a heroic measure to help protect all the rest – Fix voting once and for all. It took me 10 minutes this year in Iowa. That should be the standard for a prepared voter.

Some of the early ballots have been counted and this is where the real advantage goes to Begich. Begich is polling between +5% to + 18% better than his walk-up polls, with no counted precinct showing a lower number than his election day numbers.

In District I only two precincts (3,4) had some early ballots counted and these were 77% (+6%), and 70% (+9%). But the unrecorded pro-Begich districts out-number the Stevens areas.

Begich’s Mat-Su numbers for the for precincts showed an average of +7% for early voting [41-45% in this heavily Republican district]. So even though he never gains a majority there he cuts into Steven’s substantial leads in the walk-up votes.

District II precincts were about 12% higher than his walk-up numbers (with all above 51% and averaging about 63%).

District III his early voting numbers (61%) were averaging almost 14% higher than his walk-up vote averages.

In District IV only one set of early voting number was available. Area 4 showed Begich with a 64%-36% advantage over Stevens. That was about 4% higher than his walk-up vote % on election day.

Given the above, if the pattern continues Begich should win easily…unless some bias is present in the “problem votes” towards Stevens.